Centering
by cable69
Summary: The clay knocked, uneven, against Gaila's hands, no matter how hard she pressed.


**a/n:** I realize I'm gonna get castigated for writing/posting this rather than more _EH_, but, well, whatever; I'm tense from seeing _Gravity_ and not in the mood to restrain myself. Gaila/Uhura; cw for abuse.

(oh also I have a tumblr, check my profile for the link)

x

**Centering**

x

The clay wouldn't center.

Gaila frowned at the wheel. She wet her hands and cupped the clay, kicking the wheel into a fast turn. The clay knocked, uneven, against her hands, no matter how hard she pressed.

The bright white pottery wheels, four of them, were in a corner of the rec room, cordoned off from the rest of the festivities by a high wire rack for drying that sparkled clean. The kiln was set in the wall, eyeing the potters like a Balrog, its deep flames emanating from the black, a perfect circle in the side of the ship. A single, spotless silver sink was set in the small white counter next to the kiln, and beside that, the computer sat waiting on its wall panel, ready to fetch unreplicated clay or ribs or sponges from the depths of Enterprise's storage at the hint of a voice.

She wet her hands again and pressed the sides of her palms hard against the clay, columning it up in a prayer-motion and back down, one hand guiding the side of the cylinder while the other pushed down. Over and over Gaila centered the clay, up and down, gritting her teeth as the rough surface of the wheel scraped over her skin, ignoring the pain to pull and push and pull.

The twentieth time Gaila brought the column of clay down, a new red line rotated out from the center. She lifted her hands in shock and drops of blood flecked the clay, the wheel, her slurry-stained uniform.

Gaila tried not to shake as she washed her hands. The blood, in veins, ran down the drain, mixing with the dust.

x

Uhura had three PADDs at her elbows and, according to the crowded display in front of her, was switching between seven different channels, her Listening Face firmly on. A clear sign she couldn't be interrupted if there was one. Gaila leaned against the panels near the transporter, watching the bridge. It was alpha shift, so the primary crew were at their stations: Kirk, reading an encyclopaedia entry on the latest species they were dealing with; Spock, flipping through screens and screens of readouts; Chekov, quadruple-checking the course; Sulu, viewing the engine stats. A standard deck crew was comprised of fourteen individuals, and Gaila knew all of them, even the security guards looking through maps at their station across from her. She waved at Torya and Willem, then made her way silently over to Chaz, the computer specialist.

Chaz had long blond hair tied at the nape of his neck with a purple ribbon. Even Gaila knew it clashed horribly with his bright red uniform. He grinned when he saw her and pulled a chair up. "Alien on deck," he joked, sliding a few terminal windows over to her screen. "Help me with this? Unless you're here for something else."

"Sure," Gaila said, smiling. "I don't do enough coding."

Chaz sighed at his screen. "It's just a decryption thing—check it out, the last encounter we had fucked with the secondary backup, and I have to untie all this by hand. Unless you've got a subroutine up your sleeve?"

"I could come up with one," Gaila said, flipping through the knotted code. "Want to leave it? I'll get this on my shift."

"That'd be great, but I don't want—"

"It's not an inconvenience," Gaila said firmly. "I like solving problems."

"Spoken like a true comp spec," Chaz laughed. "Alright, I'll keep working on backing up botany."

They eviscerated the botanists, who were plain mean to their computers and totally deserved the derision, for a while, trading terrible plant jokes and idly running through bug reports. Gaila had almost lost herself in the code when a hand slid over her shoulder.

"Lieutenant Gaila, can I help you?" Uhura said.

They went into one of the sitting rooms off the deck. "What's up?" Uhura said. She had her legs crossed prim, ladylike, her hands in her lap. It was amazing how she could do that so naturally. Gaila sprawled everywhere, acting as if there were nothing to keep in. Acting.

"I got a comm from my mother," Gaila said.

Uhura's face went blank with shock, her mouth o-ing. "What?" she said. "When?"

"A few hours ago," Gaila said. She smoothed the sleeves of her uniforms, watching her red nails slide down the cloth. "She said she was on Ranza V."

"Oh my God," Uhura said. She had her hands on her face now. "Gaila. Oh my God."

"She just escaped," Gaila said. "I was the first person she called." She brushed her fingers over her cheek. "She said not to come. She said she was being transported to Earth and that she'd see me when I got back."

Uhura sat there with her hands covering her mouth, radiating concern. Gaila had no idea what else to say. She had no idea what she wanted. She felt her chest heaving and her face getting wet. Uhura was beside her, holding her, kissing her temple and stroking her back, and Gaila fell into her arms.

x

Kirk made excuses to Command. Bones made bread pudding. Sulu made her a wreath out of holly, which was good luck on Orion. Everyone made room.

Gaila spent her free time in her room. Kirk had tried to excuse her from duty but she'd punched him on the shoulder and they'd had to go fight it out in one of the exercise rooms. She was pretty sure Kirk had let her win, but it had worked out a kink in her, and she had laughed at the way his face twisted while he tried not to fall over, having been whacked in the shins by her quarterstaff.

Apparently Chekov's parents were lawyers, and they talked to some people, and she got a message from one of the Orion refugee organizations on Earth and an offer of free representation, if she needed it. Gaila spent a few hours on the organization's site, looking at their mission, when they were founded, who they had helped. She thought about the small things it took to assist in an asylum case. A place to stay. Clothes for the hearing. Hours of a lawyer's time.

Uhura spent most of the time not knowing what to say. Gaila could feel the desperation in her, clawing just underneath the surface of Uhura's skin. They sat together in Gaila's room or, rarely, in the mess or Uhura's room or a meeting room, missing the ability to put things into words. Gaila could describe half of what she was feeling in Orion, a fourth in English, and a fourth not at all. Uhura, who had made communication the study of her life, was silent, and it raked at her, Gaila knew.

Because what was there to say? Uhura could not ask, "How do you deal with this?" when the imprecise _this_ denoted Gaila's entire past, the structure of her culture, the horror woven into Gaila's very genetics. Uhura could not ask, could not admit to know so little of the one she loved so much, and Gaila could not answer, could not put into words or form the violent turmoil she had grown up in the eye of. It was a gap that could not be bridged. So Gaila closed her eyes and held Uhura's hand and wove through the maze, questing for words, and Uhura watched Gaila's drawn face, laurel green now, pale, ransacking her mind for topics, games, jokes, anything to push away from the edge of the abyss yawning between them.

x

Spock was in the pottery corner, glazing.

He had something like a scowl on his face, and when he heard Gaila's approach he whipped around, lines of embarrassment crinkling around his mouth. Gaila wouldn't have been surprised if making an expression was a criminal offense in Vulcan culture.

"Lieutenant Gaila," Spock said, nodding slightly. "I didn't know you made pottery."

"Badly," Gaila said, going over to the rack where her sad, wonky vases were drying. "I think I've lost my touch." She cupped the smallest one in her hand. The clay had the texture of damp, hard leather. "I used to make things all the time," she said as she put the vase in the damp box.

"As did I," said Spock, moroseness creeping into his smooth tone. "All my projects crack after firing, always at the bottom."

"I'm sorry," Gaila said. She hefted a different bowl with an uneven lip in her hand. Perfect for trimming. "My flaw's at a more fundamental level. I can't get anything to center." But she didn't feel like trimming anything right now. She went to the wall for new clay to throw.

Spock put down the brush he was glazing his cup with. "I am glad you will see your mother soon," he said.

Gaila closed her eyes. "Spock," she said. "I hadn't even thought— I'm so sorry."

"No," said Spock; there was something small and desperate in his tone. "No, Gaila—I do mean it. I am glad for you."

"Thank you," Gaila said sincerely. The computer deposited two pounds of clay into her hands. She wedged the clay as Spock picked up his brush and finished his cup. She watched him from underneath her lashes. She had expected his uniform to be neat, but it was splattered with slurry and glaze.

The wheel was watching her, waiting, Gaila knew it. She got a clean bucket of clear water and her dirty apron with its pockets of chipped tools and dropped her clay on the table. She sat, pressed her knees against the spotless wheel, leaned over it, kicked it up to speed, and threw the clay down as hard as she could. She wet her hands, pressed them into the sides of the clay, and _pushed_.

Gaila spun and spun, but the clay wouldn't center.

She sat back. How long had it been? This area of the rec room was generally cold, to keep down the humidity, but sweat ran down her neck. Spock was cleaning up. He had made six small cups, lined in a precise row next to his wheel.

"I hate how clean it is in here," Gaila said.

She saw Spock's shoulders straighten at the sink. "As do I," he said. He turned around, his hands clasped precisely in front of his hips. "I am unused to such levels of cleanliness. I watched my mother work in a human studio whenever we were on Earth. It was quite disorganized." He lowered his gaze to the floor. "Once, she tried to work in a Vulcan studio, but it was too clean for her."

Gaila laughed. "I love that about humans. I swear, they have a greater range of weirdness than most species. Like, Vulcans are weird in one direction, Orions in another, you know? But humans are just—they're freaky across the board."

"The species does possess many quirks," Spock agreed.

"I was never in a studio on Orion," Gaila said. "I'm sure there were studios, but we just had a kick wheel in the back of the house, and you had to go get the clay out of the river. The guards would take the kids down to gather buckets of it, and then we'd go back and wedge it and dump it in stass containers. There was always someone at the wheel. I watched them when I could. They'd make these beautiful cups and pitchers and bowls and plates. Orion's method of ornamentation is—it's so _different_ from Vulcan's, or Earth's. It's a lot of planes, and curls—very mathematic, but with awareness of the earth it's sculpted from. One of the women made me this little comb out of some rusty clay. I used it to tie my hair up for a few years," Gaila took a deep breath, "until it got broken."

Gaila ran her hands down her uniform pants, pushing it away. "I'm still surprised you get that messy," she said to Spock, trying to keep her voice normal.

"I have never understood how some potters stay so clean," Spock said. "There was a woman in Mother's studio who did not wear an apron. She was spotless."

"Unnatural," Gaila said.

"Indeed," said Spock lightly. "Life ought never be unblemished."

"I suppose."

x

"Gaila," Uhura said that night, "I know there was more in the message."

Gaila's quarters were smaller than most. She loved small spaces, had loved them ever since she was a child and could hide in the smuggling holes and closets to get away from the guards, even if it was only for a few hours. Her bed, made up with a hand-knit quilt from her first roommate at the Academy, was crammed into the back corner next to a desk. Tapestries and prints and baubles picked up from shore-leave worlds decorated the square expanse of wall above her headboard, a kaleidoscope of color and texture that made the room even more crowded.

They were tucked against that wall, covered in a big, fluffy blanket Uhura had gotten for a shockingly low price on some icy planet, shoulders touching, reading. Gaila had forgotten to act like she was scrolling the novel she was reading on her PADD, and when Uhura spoke, she realized that Uhura had been still, too, for minutes now.

"I went back to look up the transmission and—I didn't mean to hear it, I really didn't."

Gaila closed her eyes and leaned her head back. There was a headache building right above her ears. She should have known Uhura knew.

"I understand if you're mad. I can leave. We can not talk about this." Uhura spread her hands in a gesture of peace, pain in the crinkles of her eyes. "_Kaheyu raieth ak'lokainah,_" Uhura said; _the thing you need utmost_, in Orion.

"I didn't know how to tell you," Gaila said, _that my mother was tortured for months until it ruined her, until she lost all movement in her arms and legs, until she couldn't hear in one ear and see in one eye, until she needed machines to breathe and eat and piss for her_. "And I didn't feel like I needed to." _To tell you that I left her. I left here there. I left her there to suffer._

"If that's how you feel, then you don't," Uhura said. "Whatever you feel is the most real thing. That's what matters. If you don't need to talk about it, don't."

"I don't know what to say." _This is all so confusing. It makes me remember. What they did to me. Do I want to remember? I've forgotten so well, I think_. _My arms don't even hurt any more. The doctors got rid of those scars._ "There's so much." _So much you don't know. So much you can't understand. _"It makes me feel like—" _like if I told you, it would push you away. _"—if I told you, it would push you away. Because you can't help me with this. And I know you want to. I know that's part of who you are. You think you're—" _infallible, a miracle worker, smarter than everyone else. _"—capable of anything. But you're not."

"Okay," said Uhura, unsteady. "I wasn't—I wasn't abused, yes. My past isn't the same." _Your culture is not as toxic and destructive and horrible. _"And you're right. I will never understand what you went through. I won't." Uhura leaned over and cupped Gaila's cheek. "But I know who you are now. And I don't want to ever devalue the deep importance of what you've been through, but I know that time truly heals wounds, and I know that you are funny and smart and gorgeous and everything I've ever wanted in a relationship. I know _now_ Gaila. I'll never know _then_ Gaila. And honestly, I'll never—" Gaila could see it hurt to say. "—I'll never _know_ you. I can't breathe with your lungs or beat with your heart. But I can know your breath like I know my own, and I can feel your heartbeat even when I'm not next to you. We're not Vulcans so we can't _know_ each other like that. But there are times, Gaila, you know it, when we both rise above each other, and—God, it sounds so fake, but—we meet on another plane."

_Practical Nyota_, Gaila thought, _dreaming of a spirit world_—but of course, she understood.

x

Maybe it goes without saying that the clay will center, now, under her adroit fingers. And that she cried when she saw her mother laying in the hospital bed. But it hurts less to laugh now. Every act (physical, sexual, spiritual) feels a little less like wall building and a little more like cooperation. Maybe, given time (which does heal wounds) she will come to accept the scars she sees in her mind's mirror; maybe she will become a whole person, not one cut in half and stitched crudely back together. _Algonaz rakanah a'host_, the Orion saying goes; _the only sure thing is death_. Gaila no longer thinks this is true, because she hears the song in Uhura's laugh when she shows Uhura a wonky vase she made. She can find her center _there_, on the tip of Uhura's tongue, in the lines on her mother's palm, in the epicenter of her own heartbeat.


End file.
